Some Like It Hot 1.0 stars

In the later stage of Billy Wilder’s career, there is an evident pull toward the romantic and euphoric (Love in the Afternoon, Irma La Douce, Avanti), and there is an opposing pull toward the caustic and raucous (One Two Three, The Fortune Cookie, the Ray Walston-Cliff Osmond bits, particularly, in Kiss Me, Stupid). This one belongs at the head of the second batch, for the impression made by Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis in drag (among other things) is unhappily deeper, stronger, and longer-lasting than the impression made, in spots, by Marilyn Monroe. Curtis’s Cary Grant impression, when out of drag, isn’t bad, but why would someone be doing a Cary Grant impression in a 1920s setting? 1960.